Support IslamQA

Please contribute generously in order to ensure the continuity of our website InshaAllah.

Are Zodiac Signs Haram?

20-06-1999

Question 2538

I know that it is haram to read horoscopes as only ALLAH knows what the future holds for us and since I have found this out, I have, Alhamdu Lilah, stopped reading my horoscope. 

Is dream interpretation also haram or is it allowed?  I dreamt that I was kidnapped and then I also dreamt that an aunt of mine who was eating curried crab gave me a hug. 

The internet has a website on interpretation of dreams and me being kidnapped means that I will be put in an embarrassing situation and the hug from my aunt means that I will lose my lover.  Is this true? Can you please comment?

Summary of answer:

Astrology, horoscopes, superstition and fortune-telling are all actions of ignorance which Islam came to show as false and to explain that they are acts of polytheism.

Answer

Praise be to Allah.

Are horoscopes haram?

Astrology , horoscopes, superstition and fortune-telling are all actions of ignorance which Islam came to show as false and to explain that they are acts of polytheism. This is because they involve depending on something other than Allah and believing that benefit and harm come from something other than Him, and believing the words of fortune-tellers and soothsayers who falsely claim to have knowledge of the unseen in order to cheat people of their money and change their beliefs. 

Evidence for prohibiting zodiac signs in Islam

The evidence for that is the hadith narrated by Abu Dawud in his Sunan with a sahih isnad from Ibn 'Abbas (may Allah be pleased with him), that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: “Whoever learns anything of astrology has learned a branch of witchcraft (al-sihr)…” 

Al-Bazzar narrated with a sound chain of transmission from ‘Imran ibn Husayn that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: “He is not one of us who practises augury or has it done for him, who tells fortunes or has his fortune told, or who practises witchcraft or has that done for him.” Whoever claims to know some matter of the unseen either is a fortune-teller or is acting like a fortune-teller in some sense, because Allah is the only One Who has knowledge of the unseen. Allah says (interpretation of the meaning);

“Say: ‘None in the heavens and the earth knows the Ghayb (Unseen) except Allah…’” [al-Naml 27:65]

How to avoid fortune-telling

My advice to everyone who has anything to do with these matters is to repent to Allah and ask for His forgiveness, and to depend only on Allah and to put their trust in Him in all their affairs, whilst following the practical means that are prescribed or permitted in shari’ah. They should give up these matters of jahiliyyah, keep away from them and avoid asking the people who practise them or believe what they say, out of obedience to AllahAllah and His Messenger (peace and blessings of AllahAllah be upon him), and in order to protect his commitment to Islam and his ‘aqidah (religious belief).

And Allah knows best.

Shirk and its different forms
Show on Islam Q&A website.